It’s been a couple of days since we were in San Francisco, participating in an event that was both inspiring and awakening. How else can you describe the speed and abundance of information you are called to absorb in just a few days ? The people that you want to meet in person (any single one of them)? The teams that want to share their passion with you, and most of them manage to do so quite successfully?

Outside the Concourse Center

Given the number of events taking place any given week at San Francisco, I guess I have to define that I’m talking about #LAUNCH Festival of Jason Calacanis. From Monday the 24th to Wednesday the 26th, we had the chance to live in the epicentre of digital economy, of a technology and business ecosystem that is based on innovation and is dedicated to solve real problems. There is no point giving a wrap up of the festival since you can read a very concise one and see all the videos here.

I’m nevertheless tempted to point out a few really amazing products and companies that were presented. Some of them are maybe already known and those who follow the trends will most probably have heard them, but the fact that we saw them live at stage was definitely exciting.

One card to hold them all.

To start with, I’m looking forward to the day I’ll start using coin and ditch all my credit cards. Maybe even my loyalty cards ? This is a card all in one thanks to Kanishk Parashar, the founder. Check this simple yet amazing product here.

The OMSignal app. Comes with the shirt. (c) OMSignal Web Site.

Being a passionate runner though, my real dream product and first to my wish list has to be the T-shirt, Stephane Marceau, Cofounder of OMsignal was wearing. A real-time biometric-tracking apparel that monitors heartbeat, breathing, and activity, and syncs seamlessly with your smartphone. I bet you can match it with Lumo lift, the sensor that reminds you to correct your posture, or Atlasthe new“kid in wearable town”. The watch that tracks down and knows all your workouts. And if by any chance you are missing an organ (say a heart) no worries. Dr. Stuart Williams from Cardiovascular Innovation Institute will print one for you (well not right now, but he is getting there soon).

But not only apparel and wearables are now interconnected. It seems that internet is getting to everything (we knew about fridges and even stoves) but now we even saw a typical kitchen scale. Drop is the iPad-connected kitchen scale that makes perfect baking easy. And if you are maybe not quite sure for the recipe, or you do not have the ingredients, kptncook could probably help you with your grocery list. Now that you are ready you can invite everyone for dinner with Repart.ee, this new slick app.

Density app. See how many people came to your store. (c)Density.io Press Kit

Speaking of invitations and events, how many times did you want to participate more actively in an event just by giving more feedback than a yawn or an applause and you couldn’t ? Well now you can. Check out meeting pulse where the organizers of an event can engage the whole public with this tool. Using Crowd Mic they can even turn every smartphone into a mic and give voice to every participant. And if you want to count the people who came to your event (or any business for that matter) then Density has you covered.

Connect. All your friends in a map. (c)Connect Press Kit.

If you are a parent with young kids, then you’ll definitely like the bleepbleeps concept. A family of fun gadgets that will help a parent during the long sleepless nights that he/she has to endure when their kids are crying or are feverish (I speak from personal experience).

Apart from the cool interconnected hardware though, it seems that we cannot live without social presence anymore and in order to literally “map” your friends you’ll probably need connect (Overall Launch Winner by the way). The place where you can see where each one of your friends is (in a map). Now, if you just want to text coworkers in a secure environment without even knowing their number, cotap is the app for you. And if you want to play with messages and create ripple effects check out ripple or see what happens when someone is reading your text then try blush messenger.

Now if you want to dig into some more technical stuff like analytics for performance testing then Performanceci and getvue were among the Hackathon’s top seven.

If you are looking for an “All-In-One Advertising Platform” to manage Google, Bing, Facebook & linkedin campaigns then have a look at Adstage.

If you are like us, trying to handle 15 projects at the same time, then probably dashcube is the collaboration tool you would like to give a try (we would).

If you want to make the most out of your venue and rent it for alternative uses then peerspace seems a nice concept.

If you want to get rid of those tickets for a show that you booked but you can’t go then check out Hi-Lo.

If you want to bring ratings & reviews, deals and social buzz in one single map then bliips is for you.

If you are unsure about something you can ask your friends with bedloo.

And if you really like drones and small helicopters then you would dig the pocket ones from Airdroids.

Speaking of hardware solutions Crownsnest claims that it can “enable rapid development of camera-driven applications with a robust and secure API”. This might be worth looking at.

Special mention should be given to Handup, the winner of the Best Social Enterprise award. A cool app that let’s you donate to people in need directly and not through any charities.

I surely must have missed a lot, given the number of startups there and the products they presented. For people passionate with technology and innovation like us the Launch festival was definitely one of the most rewarding experiences that we could have. Coming from Europe, we did realize the differences: a completely straight and sometimes even brutal approach that can be frightening and fun at the same time. A “willing-to-risk” culture where success and failure is just a step, never the destination.

Recognise any names ?

This year we were there as visitors. DOTSOFT was there to explore. I hope next year, we’ll be there as presenters.

By the way we DOTSOFT was also at the IDCC 2014 and we did win a Best Poster Award there.

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